Yes, the auto-tune version was truly mind-blowing. The ukulele version was good too.

I was also reminded that I heard an easy listening / elevator / Muzak version once too. That also brings up a mixture of emotions. I love that Nirvana and this song was honored so widely but how could musicians perform this with a straight face? Perhaps they didn’t.

The Border Collie is exhibit A in the “Dogs are Smarter Than Cats” trial.

As for “I Got you Babe,” my favorite version is “I Got You MacBabe,” performed by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore on Saturday Night Live in full Scottish garb (Dudley was in drag) and accent: “I got you to kiss good neet” “I got you to hold ma teet”…

We haven’t had snow this winter. But when we do, my Manxie Sierra will lead me to paths that need shoveling and supervise while I shovel. She’s totally weatherproof otherwise, but hates to wade through the white stuff.

I think it is only embedded twitter videos that deliver the message “The media could not be played”. Is that right?

There are a lot of reports on this problem. If you see a fix that suggests installing flash please ignore – twitter videos are HTML5 not flash. It has something to do with a CSP [Content Security Policy] clash between your browser & twitter, but don’t expect a fix soon! You can try disabling CSP in your browser which works for some people [not me]

I’ve figured out a solution that works for me – it’s to do with a messed up Twitter cookie that screws with the CSP rules in Waterfox, Firefox & MS Edge browsers.

[1] If you have a Twitter account, then log out of Twitter
[2] Close all Twitter tabs if any are open
[3] Delete ALL Twitter cookies from your browser – this will include getting rid of the one old, bad cookie [instructions for that below]
[4] Close & open your browser
[5] If you have a Twitter account, log back into it
[6] Try to play an embedded Twitter video – if you don’t have a Twitter account [I don’t] you’ll get the message asking if you accept their cookies. So accept their cookies.

You may find when clicking the video – it doesn’t play. in which case double click or advance the time bar at the bottom by clicking in the bar near the start. It will play in embedded form.

###
DELETING TWITTER COOKIES:

Firefox menu > Options > Privacy > History Section: Click the “remove individual cookies” link > A box pops up named “Cookies” > In the search field type “twitter” > Around a dozen cookies appear in a list > Click the “Remove All Shown” button at the bottom > Done. Close the Pop up & the “Options” boxes

Firefox is fine today. You might want to take a look at Firefox “web extensions” before moving back – make sure Firefox still operates the way you want it to!

It used to use a lot of memory per open tab & run slow, but both of those problems are solved. Speed differences between browsers are so small it’s now just a geek thing.

As you know Firefox is the most flexible of browsers via the addons system. Well they’re dropping addons & replacing them with web extensions. I’m not happy with that so I’ve moved to Waterfox which promises to continually support the addon system as their core mission.

Also, since I don’t know for musical terminology, in “I Got You, Babe,” how does one describe Cher’s voice? Baritone, at least at first? And her/their range? (Their performance has long been a great one – just stopping now to try to analyze why, musically.)

Cher is contralto [the lowest accepted female vocal category] & she has a range of just over 3 octaves. What I like about Cher is she sings close to her voice ‘breaking’ – right on the edge there – while retaining her tone. Her vibrato is extremely fine – not forced & she can hold a note with or without it.

She reminds me of the superbly skilled Alison Moyet who sings in the same range. Other worthy examples are Christine McVie, Natalie Merchant & the incredible rocker PJ Harvey [not as skilled in her early work but it doesn’t matter for the female Iggy Pop]. Amy Winehouse is also contralto, but she’s too affected – too many vocal mannerisms to cover up her weaknesses.

They could be sisters! Here’s an interesting exercise. Below is Chicken Shack’s version of “I’d Rather Go Blind” with Christine Perfect [McVie] on Vocal. McVie drives it around the curves in the road without a bump – never near the edge – & it’s rather beautiful in its ‘white’ purity. Then compare with the original beautiful, rough blues by Etta James & Beyoncé’s overly mannered modern version [both on YouTube].

Here’s Moyet singing “Invisible from her 1984 album “Alf” = one can imagine Cher covering this easily [& possibly better]

“Alf” used to be one of my favourite albums, but I can’t listen to stuff from that era now – the 80s-style ‘bright’ Christmassy ‘Live Aid’ production values are unbearable. Even real percussionists tried to copy that drum machine sound to stay in work. ugh.

There’s a lot of nonsense spouted about singing voice types from the experts – who are interested in categorising voices for their own convenience more than anything else!

Contralto is rare in the female population – perhaps 1%.. And yet a lot more than 1% of singers are successful, well known female contralto singers – hundreds of them. They are over-represented among singers because we all find women who can sing that range are powerful, sexy etc: Nina Simone, Annie Lennox, Cher, Natalie Merchant, Debbie Harry, Nico [though she can’t actually sing – she’s flat] etc.

By the same token there are even more extreme, outlier female voices that are baritone – the depth of voice has little to do with body size & more to do with vocal folds [whatever they are] & other hidden features of the voice box. Also one can train somewhat to change ones range. Example: If you want to SMASH the teen girl market then sing high with ‘talkie’ vocals & moronically simple melodies so that your fans can sing along – this explains Bananarama, Nolan Sisters, Spice Girls, Enya blah blah [this is one reason why very poor singers are successful – be as untechnical a singer as possible & your base can relate to your mediocrity]

That drum sound wasn’t being copied from this album (and I imagine that’s not what you were suggesting). Producer Hugh Padgham figured it out entirely by accident during the recording of Peter Gabriel’s third solo album. Genesis used it in the recording of “In the Air Tonight” soon after, and it became ubiquitous throughout the 80’s as soon as the music world heard it.

Yes, I wasn’t referring to that specifically, although in the scheme of things it didn’t bloody help! A horrific musical ‘development’

I’m turned 60 now & I’ve almost entirely dumped mainstream music post-’82. I stick with the indie bands such as Radiohead, PJ Harvey & Neil Young because they produce their own music & they’ve avoided too much use of dynamic range compression in their recordings. Here is an explanation of what I mean: https://youtu.be/TqQX3htzhSY

That’s one of the biggest evils in recorded music today *steps off soapbox*

Very good! The chap on the left with pony tail is very good in other songs. The woman with short hair [3rd from the right] is Kitty Lux who co-founded the outfit. She died six months ago after a long, illustrious, peculiar career in music, theatre [a naked version of the Scottish Play] & performance. I remember her from Sheeny & the Goys!

Regarding the dog: it isn’t taking itself sledding. This is, rather, a great demonstration of an advanced trick.

The dog is cued by the handler to retrieve the sled. Then there is a convenient edit (where the dog probably gets rewarded for the retrieve) and then the dog is dragging the sled a little farther up the hill. Note that the sled has now been turned around. Then the dog waits for another cue from the trainer, jumps on, and rides. The riding and balancing are impressive. But the video has been edited (also conveniently without sound, so we can’t hear the cues) to make it appear that the dog is playing this game on its own. Not so. The dog never makes a move until it gets cued.